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Woo. Tomorrow I will have some progress photos. I am going to see the car in the morning before work. What I know is the back panel has been cut out, so that will be interesting to see, and the front left ¼ panel they ended up repairing instead of replacing. apparently spent a solid days work on it to get it properly straight, all the bog removed and currently in bare metal. There has been phone calls back and forth over the past couple weeks just figuring out more and more details. I think my bill from the panel shop is going to be higher than i originally intended, but i cant help myself, asking them to do extra stuff They are going to roll the guards, so my 13x6 steel rims will hopefully fit. they have a lower offset than my alloys, so they are going to stick out about 10mm further. by rolling the guards i should have no issues with clearance. They have also inspected the chassis, on the driver's side where my front leaf spring eye is on the chassis. Its always been in the wrong spot, appears to have been welded in the wrong spot from factory. 10mm further back, hence i have always run offset pinned lowering blocks. well, they are going to fix that also, and get the eye mount in the correct spot Mark has given me free rain of the workshop, so i can come and go whenever i like if there is anything id like to do underneath the car, especially now while its in the air. He suggested i spend some time over there getting the underside cleaned up and body deadened/stone guarded. On the gearbox front, Rod ( @2redrovers) helped me finished cutting the extension housing. I have spent some time getting it ready to be welded, but since then, I have been flat stick at work. I am temporarily filling a management role at work until march, so in an office from around 10am until about 5pm every day. makes progress very very slow In the mean time, I have also had the alternator on my LR Discovery 2 spit the dummy, so have spent the last couple nights after work getting that ripped out, and hopefully will have the new unit in, and car running again tomorrow night. So i have been without my daily driver too. Anyway, ill grab some photos of the car tomorrow to share with you guys. Im kind of excited to see the progress, but super nervous about it too

Not quite the solution but you fellas were on the right track. I had another go at it this morning, pulled all the leads off and went to put them back on again just to be sure. That's when I noticed that the firing order stamped on the posts on the el cheapo Chinese dizzy cap was wrong, 5 and 3 were reversed. Swapped 'em over, cranked it and it fired right up! [emoji38] Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

Most lpg systems start on petrol and then flick over to LPG when the engine has run for a few seconds, if its playing up when starting chances are its the fuel system playing up, one was to diagnose is to have someone try to start it while spraying some brake clean/carb cleaner down the throttle body, if is starts and runs easily then switches to lpg you know you have a problem with something in you fuel system, if it doesn't then it could be spark related

I went and saw the car today. It was pretty surreal to see it stripped down now with glass out, the rear panel been cut out, and see some bare metal. to put a bit more pressure on me, i said to Mark im not sure how i will go fitting the engine and gearbox without scratching the new paint in the engine bay, to which he said, HE would much prefer me to fit the driveline there at his workshop, with the use of his hoist, by dropped the subframe out, putting the engine and box on that, and lowering the car down onto the subframe, how they were built from factory. BUT, that means I have to find a 1600 before the car leaves the shop I have also been given free run of the workshop. I am picking up a key and alarm code from Mark on friday night, and a couple of us are going in on saturday to clean up the underside of the car, to get ride of all the oil, dirt and surface rust, so they can spray the underside in subframe black. filthy work, but it needs to be done. ¼ panel repaired. The reason it was so full of bog was because when it was repaired previously, the shop that did it had use a slide hammer, then never bothered to fix up the spots the slide hammer attached to, so just used bog to smooth it all over. antenna hole is filled. I had told them not to put an antenna into the new guard. when mark told me they had ended up repairing the original guard, i figured they'd leave the antenna hole...nope. rear panel gone and floor all straightened out again. the one spot of rust in the entire car. the spare wheel well. i thought that would be the case. someone had done a pretty bad backyard repair job in there to try stop it. now its been stripped its brought it right out.

absolutely. and I am keen to continue to approve more work on it. at the end of the day, as long as the shell is in perfect condition, if that is where all my budget goes, just into the shell, im fine with that. the extra stuff like engine upgrade, steering rack, brakes etc, can be out of pocket in the future.

My 850hp rated C4 uses BW clutches x5 and the bands from memory.

As i sort of tried to say above. like for like, and this is coming from watching an engine builder (also fellow RSOCV club member) who specialises in building fast escorts, a 1600 on a low budget can produce more power, and rev better than a pinto with the same low budget spent on it. This is a guy who builds them with his own custom cam grinds, and engine dynos each engine and tunes them before giving them back to the customer. a stock 1600 (for arguments sake Ghia spec with 32/36 factory) vs a 2L Ghia Pinto (same carby) makes not much less power than the pinto. stick a mild cam, some basic porting, balance, side draft carbs into a 1600, and its making some solid power. its been proven by said engine builder, Pintos take more time, money and work to make the same sort of gains than it does a 1600. the 1600 is also a lot lighter than a Pinto. and it is a stronger engine. An old school trick was to stick 1300 pistons in a 1600. I have a set of 1300 pistons here. It raises the comp ratio significantly. I wasn’t going to explain why shifting the Pinto back on the mounts Doesn’t work, but Rod already explained it for me. It also would be mighty close to the heater bubble, if it were to clear at all, when shifted back on the mounts. They are a long engine. as for engineers, yeah wouldn’t need it. But there would be expense in upgrading brakes. Im pretty sure a Pinto wont fit with the original Mk1 booster like it is. Or if it does, the headers would be mighty close to the booster arm that bolts to the firewall.

yeah but ive said this before. Im not cutting the shell to make it fit. and to be honest, the OHC Pinto are an ok engine. but they are surprisingly hard to balance when you start modifying them. believe it or not, a 1600 is easier to balance, will rev harder than a pinto, and can make more power than a pinto with the same money put into either engine. and i dont need to cut the body shell. This is why im not keen on doing a zetec into this car either. it means no cutting. remember that I am modifying my 5 speed gearbox to suit the shell, rather than the other way around. simple, im not cutting this car to make things fit.

something you can try on LPG cars if you suspect it's converter.. is to tip HOT water Boiling even. over the converter.. this will soften up the GUNK that can build up inside.. if it's suddenly working fine.. then it's a dirty converter.. (i was told they can't be cleaned, but i'd have a go if i had one.. i had to clean Landi brand converter every 12 months in My XF)

no ,easy way out is just buy a eb or ed sedan diff and use your centre and/or gears ,a 3.23 e series diff is cheap and easy to find,just wack your lsd centre in it and grab the e series tailshaft.

You do what you want Panko. I was doing up Escorts 20-25 years ago. The only Ford escort 1600 that revs harder than a Pinto 2L is the 1600 twin cam, because it's overhead cam. To get around radiator mods, you just move the engine mounts back 2". 2L Pinto is a beautiful motor, very easy to wake up with just a cam and nice carbs. I've been there done that with Eskies. I suggest you read Steve Vizards books on 2L Pintos, will change your life. I understand your not wanting to mod the escort too much, mods for 2L are minimal. Was just trying to save you a lot of time and money. Sent from my S21 using Tapatalk

BTW, I think the Zetec is an excellent idea, especially dressed up as a BDA

It will probably have less rust by then too. No one wants it looking the way it is (too scary) and I'm not desperate to get rid of it, just a bit impractical having so many cars crammed in the shop. That won't last forever and I'll eventually tinker with the bodywork. I've had silly half thoughts about replicating the chassis in thicker stock so it still looks original but is way stiffer.

hmm maybe I see a future build coming on My original (gold) Mk1 which i never finished, was always meant to be a daily driver, and i stupidly didnt jump on an MX5 driveline into escort conversion when I had the chance, to turn the gold nugget into a reliable modern daily.

Zetec swap here we come [emoji12] Sent from my CPH1920 using Tapatalk

They are expecting they will be ready to paint the outside at the end of the month. I still have to get a block and the gearbox over there, which is fine, to mod the crossmember mounts right. As long as Mark is ok keeping the car, i can delay some of the work until i have the bits needed.

Ahh 1 more thing you need a tailshaft with the flange on it if fitting a xg or eb diff but not the early diff it will fit fine ,just buy a set of centerline wheels it will hide the drums lol Sent from my SM-G610Y using Tapatalk

It's one of those situations where you are better off going the extra mile

The 1600 escort is a fun little car to thrash but i would go the pinto with twin sidedraft webers. Old school cool all the way.

Correct. The KA runs a Kent engine. Sadly produced less power and torque in the KA than in stock form in a Mk1 Escort in the UK they used the Kents also in the original Mk1 Fiestas. I wish we had them here. yeah well some of us dont work full time. And had 8 months of no income last year i know $2k is cheap. im looking at the prospect of $5k for transmission, transfer box and clutch rebuild in the Disco

if there is ever a time i get another escort, that starts as a rolling shell, then id look at doing an engine swap like that.

yep. the bolt pattern is the same from Kent (my 1300) through to zetec. the block is basically the same block, but alloy, and OHC

Tempting. I could pick up a Zetec for about $200 from a wreckers. Its all the supporting shit thats expensive. then again, a built 1600 is well into the thousands

I've changed intakes a few times on mine, spread bore to AFD hi-rise, to factory square bore, To AFD hi-rise to factory square bore (yes twice) & finally performer, I've only ever removed dissy cap & leads, then just the intake.

Scored this off my old man from his Ford days. Some good info in here. Related to the EEC IV (Electronic Engine Control 4) used in XF Falcon/Fairmont/ZL Fairlane/FE LTD. Its focused on the first (leaded) version but generally applies to the unleaded version too. Pages 9 & 10 refer to a manual gear switch - I believe this refers only to the four speeds as the T5 wasn't introduced until unleaded models, and the 4.1 never received the "single rail" 5 speed.